I live in Brooklyn and use street parking. Parking rules were suspended for like three weeks after the recent storm. Last weekend, I paid a teenager to dig my car out so it would be ready when I needed it to move it by this weekend.
Friday, i planned to drive to dinner. I found a note on my windshield from the guy parked in front of me asking me to text him when I moved my car.
His plan was for me to pull out so that he could reverse into my (clear) space and then drive forward out of his own snowed-in spot, rather than dig himself out. This leaves his spot either unusable or needing to be shoveled by the next person who parks there.
I saw the note Friday night when I actually went out to move the car (not sure when he left it). When I tried to start my car, the battery was dead from sitting idle in the cold. I was in a rush, so I borrowed a car for the evening and didn’t get a chance to deal with my battery until the next day. When i went out to try my portable jump-starter Saturday morning, it didn’t do anything (it was also in the cold + wasn’t fully charged), so i took it in to charge overnight, as it requires.
This morning (Sunday), I went out with the jump-starter to get the car running. My neighbor, whom I’d never seen before, was outside with a shovel. As I approached, I waved and asked in a friendly tone if he had left the note.
When he saw me, he seemed angry. He confronted me, saying i should have texted him as soon as I saw the note, although it asked me to contact him when i moved the car (which I would have done [despite my disapproval of his plan to exploit the labor i paid for and to leave the snow blocking his spot for someone else to deal with]).
I explained that my car wouldn’t start and my jumper (like 2 cubic feet and in my arms, so he couldn’t have missed it) had to be charged overnight. I was about to jump it and move it.
He seemed offended and kept muttering to himself that it was "weird, man, weird" that I hadn’t called him to update him. He also asked if i had been out of town and which building I lived in, which felt like intrusive and aggressive in the context. Then he disappeared.
Tl;dr;
* I paid to have my car dug out of the snow before i needed to use it.
* The neighbor’s plan was to rely on me moving my car so he could avoid shoveling his own space, and then blocking the space by parking where my car was or leaving the space for someone else to deal with.
* My car was incapacitated (dead battery) from Friday night until Sunday morning.
* I did not respond to the note (which asked me to contact him *when* i moved) before i moved my car because I was dealing with my own stuff.
* He was a little aggressive when i encountered him, once i had the means to move my car.
I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong since I couldn’t move the car even if I wanted to, but his reaction has me wondering if I broke some unwritten rule of Brooklyn snow etiquette. AITA?
NTA
He’s just mad, lol.
He’s lazy and grumpy. Snow does that to people.
NTA. He asked you to text when you moved your car and you didn’t move your car, so why would you text?
NTA. Your neighbor is a crank, forget about him and move on.
NTA and I wouldn’t call him just for his rude behavior!!
NTA he’s lazy and rude. You owe him nothing.
NTA He spent a bit of time getting himself all worked up and practicing in his head all the things he wanted to say to “the asshole neighbor”. When you came out with your perfectly reasonable answer, he had nowhere to dump all that mad energy.
NTA. I hope you didn’t answer his intrusive questions. It’s not weird to find a dead car battery in winter. However, his note was weird. No, you didn’t need to contact him to update him, and you also didn’t need to contact him when you finally got your car going. More snow is on the way so you may be having this conversation again soon.
Make sure that number finds its way on the wall of a stall at the Port Authority.
NTA. You’re not your neighbors servant – if he wants out of the snow he can dig himself out.
NTA I would just say to him “it’s quicker to shovel yourself than wait for someone else to move for you.” He wants to be rude, you don’t need to be polite.
It’s more about his lazy and entitled behavior.
Bad snow several years back, and I had an off street parking pad. I cleaned my car, cleared all around it (having to move the snow quite a ways) and got all of the plowed snow blocking me in also removed. Shoveled, not snow blown. Dumb ass across the street parks in the street where I cleared, blocking me in.
I spent the cold night going out every hour with a bucket of water..that (oops) landed on his windshield. Got it to about 3 inches thick, and also froze his doors shut. Then I called to have him towed or ticketed. Sometimes you just have to be a petty person!
NTA
he seems like just an angry person, you don’t owe him anything, you don’t owe him a text, and you don’t have to answer his invasive questions, what a weirdo!
In Pittsburgh, people who dug out their spot, put a chair in their place so they would have a spot to park in when they returned home. Stealing someone else’s spot and their labor is poor etiquette and being pissy about it when they weren’t able to do that is even worse.
He absolutely was going to back into your spot, I mean HIS new spot.